I must tell you of another thing.  On Thursday I went to the Blind School to a concert.  I went rather against my will, for you know I was sadly impressed before by their very unhealthy and miserable look, but oh, dear, they do sing well! and it was very affecting.  One of the Barnbys teaches them.  They have a good organ, and one of the blind men played very well.  They sang very refinedly.  No doubt they are well taught, but no doubt also the sense of hearing is delicate with them....

Frimhurst. April 18, 1879.

I got here safely yesterday, though I had a horrid headache on Wednesday, and expected to arrive here in very bad condition.  I felt rather bad yesterday morning, but as I drew near, marvellous to relate, my headache went away!  Oh!  I thought so much of you, as the misty network of pines against the sky—­the stretches of moor—­the flashes of the canal—­and all the dear familiar Heimath Land came nearer and nearer....

It is still “chill April” even here, but wonderfully different from Yorkshire.  Sunshine—­and green things so much more forward—­and birds singing their very throats out.

“Lion,” the mastiff, I am rather frightened of, but he loves me and gives me paws over and over again.  He is pawing me now and will interrupt.

April 22.

The weather is intensely cold again, though nothing can make this country quite dreary—­but cold it is!  Still there are all the dear old features, I did not know the Mitchett side (of the Frimhurst bridge) of the canal; but I have been a good way down getting water-weeds—­but of course you know it well.  It is curiously like bits of the S. John [New Brunswick] River.  One could almost see birch-bark canoes at points.

To-day the Jelfs came.  It was an affecting meeting, our first since he was so ill in Cyprus, and he said, “It used to seem so little likely one would ever again see the old faces."...  He spoke at once about your calling this country Heimath Land, saying it seemed the very word.

I am going on Thursday to stay with the Jelfs till Monday; I shall be so thankful to get a Sunday in the old Tin Tabernacle.

K Lines, South Camp, Heimath Land. April 25.

It is a sunny sweet day, so that I have been strolling about in the garden without a jacket.  It is strangely pleasant being here, the old scenes without, and all Sir Howard Elphinstone’s pretty things within.  The Jelfs are staying in the Elphinstones’ hut.  In the matter of pictures I do not always agree with Sir Howard, but his decorative taste is very good, and the things he has picked up in all parts of the world are delightful.  “Et ego, etc.”  We have things and things as it is, and shall pick up more!  He is so very ingenious, and has made a dado over the mantelpiece, with a white or coloured border on which he puts pictures and photographs; in the centre is a square of coloured material with other things mounted on it.  I foresee making a similar design for our Malta mantelpiece, with a gold Maltese cross in the centre and tiles round illustrating the eight Beatitudes....